Annette Sharp: Is I’m A Celebrity on the chopping block?
Channel 10’s reality TV show I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out looks to be in doubt after the production company ITV has cancelled plans to shoot the original UK version in Australia this summer, Annette Sharp writes.
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The future of Ten’s seventh season of I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here looked in doubt yesterday following word on Friday that production company ITV has cancelled plans to shoot the original UK version of the program, due to COVID-19 isolation restrictions, in Australia this summer.
With ITV reining back the top-rating British production, the 20th season of the program which has been shot on location in Australia since 2002, sources close to the show predicted the local version of the program, as hosted by Julia Morris and Chris Brown and shot on location in South Africa since 2014, to be in jeopardy.
Ten’s reps denied the program has been axed when contacted yesterday but sources say it’s the latest blow to the Viacom/CBS-owned Ten which has slipped to a dismal number four in the television ratings nationally behind Nine, Seven and national broadcaster the ABC.
While MasterChef amply delivered for Ten in the first half of the year, lifting results across the night and delivering audiences of over 1.1 million viewers (five capital cities) throughout the season, Ten’s other prime time offerings have struggled to hold their own in 2020.
Bachelor In Paradise, which returned last month, has been a dismal failure for the network, beaten in the ratings by the ABC’s stodgy Hard Quiz.
Bachelor’s failure has in turn seen Ten’s long-time jewel, Have You Been Paying Attention, which premiered to almost a million viewers in May, shed almost 400,000 viewers in the weeks to August 3, with just 579,000 viewers tuning in.
Ten’s weak reputation in news and current affairs has cost it dearly in a year in which news-based programs have consistently dominated television’s top ten.
Originally published as Annette Sharp: Is I’m A Celebrity on the chopping block?